Injection point & DFNS: a new creation made from recycled materials

DFNS Crease Guards made of recycled plastic

DFNS Crease Guards are made of recycled plastic. Sneaker Crease Guards are a popular product. With leather sneakers, small cracks often appear on the toe box over time, especially where the shoe bends during walking. The Crease Guard is a plastic form that fits inside the shoe at the toe box, reinforcing it and preventing wrinkles from forming. To create a product that is as circular as possible, the used PP also had to come from a waste stream, but such a waste stream was not available through Nike Grind. Therefore, to supply recycled PP, Injection Point enlisted the same partner for washing the Nike Grind waste stream.

However, not every waste stream is the same. The Nike Grind waste stream is fairly reliable because it always comes from one type of product: sneakers. Other waste streams often consist of multiple products, and their composition varies. For instance, for plastic collection at home, one time, there may be more rigid plastic, for example, from drink cartons. In contrast, the next time, there might be a higher percentage of softer packaging materials such as plastic vegetable packaging.

As much material as possible for the Crease Guards should come from the Nike Grind waste stream. However, after an initial test run with this material, it was discovered that the waste stream not only consists of thermoplastics, which is necessary for injection moulding. That’s where their recycling partner – a compounder of recycled materials, came into play. Their analysis showed that the waste stream consists of TPU (thermoplastic polyurethane), EPS (expanded polystyrene), and nylon (textile).

As a result, the supplied waste stream had to be further filtered. Their recycling partner applied various recycling techniques and eventually developed a recycling method, after which the material was homogeneous enough for injection moulding.